


The Cage

by salamanderinspace



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020), Harley Quinn (Comics)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Childhood, Gen, Homophobia, Oppression, Queer Character, Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:39:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22682617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salamanderinspace/pseuds/salamanderinspace
Summary: A character study on Harley Quinn and the intersection of class and gender.
Relationships: Harleen Quinzel/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 41





	The Cage

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really have the writing skills to accomplish this story, but if anyone sees what I'm going for and wants to do better, I'm looking to read fics that approach Harley from a standpoint of social/structural criticism.
> 
> This fic kind of ignores the canon that Harley grew up in a convent. Just went in a different direction.

Harley was 8 years old when she learned of her father's fondness for Bond girls.

"Every man wants them," he explained. "And every woman wants to be them." His favorites were Vesper Lynd and Elektra King. They were classy broads, he said, just "bad" enough to face off against Bond in a game of power. "They have power, and they use that power," Brandon Quinzel explained. "Who has the most power? A man, or the women who influence him?"

The subject first arose when they were watching Octopussy. It turned out to be one of Harley's favorites; she loved the private island of only women, and the villainess Octopussy. "My father gave me the name Octopussy," Octopussy said, and Harley looked over at her own father. "What are you looking at me for?" he said, turning red.

Over the next few years, Harley made herself a student of Bond girl beauty. She looked for the patterns, intent on emulating them. They dressed in slightly masculine, assertive fashion, wore little jewellery—and that in a masculine cut—wide leather belts, and square-toed leather shoes. Sometimes they appeared in a bra and panties, or even naked. They could be suntanned or very pale, like Solitaire, Tatiana Romanova, and Pussy Galore. They were always slim and wore almost no makeup and no nail polish, also wearing their nails short. They had the same, wide-set features, white skin, expensive taste.

Harley would remember them when her father took her shopping for the suit she'd wear to college interviews. It was the suit she wore the first time she met Professor Collins.

***

"You should go by Harleen," Professor Collins said. "It makes you sound older."

"Alright," she agreed. She wondered if there wasn't something romantic about a man giving a woman a new name. Creating a new person. A person just for him. 

***

Once a year, Harley's father would take his wife shopping at the local mall. He spared no expense on clothing for her, though Harley's upbringing was a time of tv dinners and laundromats--far from any picture of wealth or luxury. When Harley turned 12, she started to notice her father's indulgences spreading to her: he bought her bikinis, heels, padded bras, all manner of clothing with less than maximum utility and overly ambitious glamour. She and her mother would share a fitting room and put on a little fashion show.

"This is what makes it all worthwhile, my darling," Harley's mother said as they were changing back into their regular clothes. "This is our special reward! You'll be lucky if you find a man who spoils you the way your father dotes on us. Hey, do you have a boyfriend yet?"

"No, mom," she answered. It was not the first time she'd been asked. She was starting to wonder if she should make someone up.

"Well, when you do get one, make him take you shopping. And order the most expensive dinner on the menu! He should pay, you're worth it."

Harley didn't think to mention that her father, despite his strict control of the household finances, had been out of work for a few years. She was old enough to notice that bill for the shopping would go on a credit card, but not old enough yet to know that the debt wouldn't be paid until the company put a lean on her mother's wages, 6 years later.

***

"Is there any point in her story," Professor Collins asked of the class, "where Ariel is not under the control of a man?" He flicked the lightswitch from "off" to "on" and retracted the screen--onto which "The Little Mermaid" had just been projected--into the wall. Harleen glanced at the clock; there were 20 minutes left in class for discussion.  
"It's not about him," she muttered.  
"What's that?" Professor Collins chirped. She'd forgotten about his supernatural hearing. "Miss Quinzel? Did you have something to contribute?"  
"I said, it's not about him," Harleen announced. She looked up from the heart-shaped scribbles she had drawn across her notebook. "It's about love. She loves humans. She collected their junk, studied it. The Prince is just her project. She's in control."  
"So you view her as some sort of anthropologist," the Professor said. "Tell me, does the Prince consent to her study of him? Informed consent, like we demand of participants in scientific studies?"  
Harleen had no answer.

***

Harley was 13 the first time she fell in love. Sonya was a softball player. She had ginger hair and big blue eyes (grey, almost, like Tiffany Case!); she was a year younger, but she and Harley had choir together. Being part of the same clique, they sat together at lunch, but for a long time they never spoke. Then it started to become apparent that Sonya looked up to Harley. Harley brought Nirvana's "Nevermind" to school in her CD player; two days later, Sonya came to school in a Nirvana t-shirt. That got them talking, and soon they were joined at the hip.

Summer that year was all about slumber parties. The group would get together for junk food and truth or dare. Sonya always picked dare. The more timid girls--Amanda, for instance--tended to stick with truth. "What would you do," Harley asked Amanda when it was her turn, "if you fell head over heels for someone. Someone who was perfect for you, and they liked you too..." She caught Sonya's eye and held it. "But that someone is a girl!"

"Uhhh...eeww, no way," Amanda acted offended by the question. Sonya blushed, and without looking away said: "I'd go for it." Amanda caught on to the tension. Looking from Harley to Sonya, she tossed her earrings and barked out, "I dare Sonya to kiss Harley!"

It was the first of many kisses. It transported Harley to a world of wonders: sunsets, fireworks, jazz music. Diamonds. Nothing could compare. They took to sleeping in each other's bed at parties, and then having slumber parties of their own. Once Sonya dared Harley to take a shower with her. It was a whole new world. When Valentine's Day approached, it seemed for the first time like Harley would have someone to celebrate with. She was excited. She spent half an hour picking out a large box of chocolates at the drug store. She wore her favorite blouse, which reminded her of Fatima Blush in Never Say Never Again.

Sonya bought her a gold bracelet. It said "best friends forever."

"More than friends, though, right girl?" Harley joked. She put her arm around Sonya, but Sonya wiggled uncomfortably away.

"My mom says girls kissing girls is devil worship," Sonya said. And that was the end of that.

***

Harleen and the professor weren't exclusive. He insisted she should learn, experiment, and "sharpen her claws on the local boys." She obliged. Sometimes it took a few ounces of tequila, but sex with boys made her feel adored. Desired. She met a kid named Jake at the bookstore where she worked part time, and they hooked up. He even paid her cab fare home. He'd text her late at night with "come over?" or "what you up to?" and she'd come by--always to his place. One time she got there and was surprised to see he had friends over. "Now it's a party," Jake said.

She wasn't quite sure how it happened. There were drinks. Someone passed around a bong. First she was just hooking up with Jake in his bedroom. When the other guys came in, she said, "I don't think tonight's the night for this." She thought it sounded classy, like something a Bond girl would say. "That's not how this works," Jake told her. Then there were hands, hands in her hair and on her back. She shrugged. It wasn't so bad.

Afterward it was late, and she was too drunk to take the bus home. She called the Professor. When she explained to him what happened--she was trying to put it together herself, needing to talk through it--he asked her why she didn't stand up for herself. "I know you can fight," he said. "You're a fighter!"

"It just didn't seem worth it," she mumbled.

He got very still. "You must have wanted to," he said.

"Sure. I guess."

He broke up with her a week later. "I don't like loose women," the text said.

***

It was Amanda's boyfriend Jeff who taught Harley to shoplift.

They all used to walk home from school together--her, Amanda, Ashley, and Jeff. He was a skateboarder, so he'd go a little ways ahead on his wheels. Harley was always impressed with how deftly he managed the board, even in early spring when the snow was still melting on the sidewalks. He taught Harley a few tricks; they hit it off, and started walking home together even when Amanda had to stay after.

It was one such day Jeff suggested stopping at the Parson's Daughter. "I don't have any cash," Harley pointed out, but he told her not to worry about it. When the clerk was focused on cutting up some fudge, Jeff's hand crept over the chocolate peanuts on the wall. It disappeared up his sleeve. Harley spilled out the door after him, trying hard not to go too fast, a little breathless. They spent the rest of the afternoon in the rotary park, splitting the bag and riding the merry go round. After the sun set the light from the coke machine turned the playground red; they stayed until the cops drove by.

***

Harley was 12 years old when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. She learned about it from the tabloids in the check out line at the grocery store.

"It's disgraceful, what that woman is trying to do," an old woman said when she saw Harley reading the papers. "Trying to take down a man like that. To ruin him, for no reason other than that she wants to be famous."

***

"Do you have any regrets?" she asked the Joker. Jay. He'd asked her to call him Jay.

He laughed. "Not a one."

She paused. "Do you feel killing people is wrong?"

"Not when you have a reason. Besides," Jay said, with a grin. "Right and wrong doesn't benefit people like us. The people with the power, with the control... they're the ones enforcing what's right and wrong."


End file.
